Katana/Regeneration (Melee/Ranged/AoE soft-capped)

Folks, I need your thoughts on this Katana/Regen build. Does it need improving? Can it be improved? Should I go in a different direction? Would it be silly to play this kind of build? Does it give up too much Regen for its soft-cap? Anything you have to say on it, really.

I'm not too worried about the low regeneration. I'm more worried about the low recharge, but that's to be expected here, and isn't strictly a failing. That's just the tradeoff you need to make. I'm curious, so I'm putting it into my survivability spreadsheet.

OK, I'm calculating 1871 for that. For comparison, my build (2 AVs at once) is at 1963, and Val Blademaster's build (4 AVs at once, designed by Umbral) is at 2236. Mine is a hybrid of defense and old-school Regen thinking (high Regeneration) with a little more recharge than yours. Val Blademaster's has moderate defense and a huge boatload of recharge.

Anyway, they're all kind of in the same ballpark, which makes me happy. I'm glad that defense builds are still viable on a Regen, and this is a serious budget build compared to either of ours. I suspect there's room for improvement at higher price points, or you could think of it as perhaps as survivable as Katana/Regen can get on a budget.

But as for what else you might be giving up, I'm worried about your attack chain. I'd want DA>GC>GD>GC>DA>GC>SD>GC, and you simply don't have the recharge for it. Golden Dragonfly needs to recharge in 8.448 and is at 9.49, Gambler's Cut needs 1.584 and is at 1.8. Soaring Dragon and Divine Avalanche are OK. Anyway, there's probably something you can do to get your required double stack of Gambler's Cut while still pulling off some decent damage, but it would need closer analysis. Basically, I suspect your attack chain will be complicated, and will do lower DPS than most. I could be wrong.

Very impressive. I'd be too chicken to go with it since regen has 0 defense debuff resistance. Course DA can cover for that with melee at least.

Defense debuffs are probably not much worse than on some other secondaries. But yeah, it's certainly about as vulnerable to them as Regen can get. I'm turning out to really dislike defense debuffs on my soft-capped Dark Armor, but I knew it would be my Achilles' Heel. Just have to play more carefully in some situations.

With no Stamina OR Physical Perfection, endurance for no-inspiration challenges might (or might not) be an issue. You have about 2.7 EPS to work with for your attack chain. At the ten thousand foot level, I'd allow for about 3 EPS for the attack chain before getting into detailed calculations, at least on something I intended for no-inspiration challenges. Otherwise I'd probably allow for about 2.5 EPS before the attack chain as my first pass. Since I'm not sure exactly what sort of attack chain would work, and am too lazy to figure it out, I also can't be certain that endurance is sustainable. It should at least be OK for most purposes, though.

Cheap and easy improvements aren't jumping out at me. I'd replace the common defense IOs with Enzymes for more defense and better endurance usage, but even the even-level ones are kind of out of line with the prices in the rest of the build. You could change to just two common recharge IOs in Instant Healing to free up a slot, then change a set of Multi-strikes to Eradications for some extra hit points and better AoE defense, but I suspect that would raise the price point as well, and perhaps exaggerate or cause an endurance problem.

Looks like fun, I mean I can't really tell you to not play that because its how you want to play. Personally if I were to want a build like that I'd just roll a Katana/Will Power.

Thanks everyone so far for the input. After looking and looking at this thing from all angles, it's really helpful getting someone else's input on it. A new pair of eyes, as it were.

I purposefully didn't say how I tend to play my characters because I really wanted a different perspective on what I had created, so hopefully you all won't think the following is just a bunch of "No, you're wrong. My build is perfect."

I actually don't mind small gaps in my attack chains. That is, if I ever did attack chains. Usually I just press whatever happens to be up in the moment. Sorta like attack-a-mole on my Primary powers.

Thanks for the heads up on the Enzymes. I always forget to look at those HOs in the builder. If it turns out that I am running out of Endurance then I will definitely switch out the regular Defense IOs in Weave for the Enzymes.

I think a Defense build on a Regen is far better than otherwise. Going from easily hittable to impossible to miss is a bad starting point. I'd rather begin at the very hard to hit mark and go down from there, relying on my many click Secondaries when Defense fails. Hell, even with Defense cascading, I can pop Moment of Glory and it will be enough time for all Defense Debuffs to wear off and I can start from the top again.

At one point I pretty much abandoned Regeneration in disgust over Willpower. I went on and made three level 50 Willpower characters within a very short timespan. I was having so much fun because there was nothing to click. I could just focus on attacking, attacking, attacking with that Secondary. My solution to offsetting the click survivability of Regen? Make it so I don't have to press those stupid buttons as often with positional Defense.

Thanks again, everyone.

I have yet to see a Kat/WP build that I would place above a Kat/Regen build... And that goes the same with a Kat/Regen above a Kat/WP...


So... in search for a better combo I rolled a Kat/WP with plans on dressing him up...




Edit: Let me know how that build works out for you bAss

I'm confused Werner. Isn't that 20% Defense getting hit more to begin with, which makes it even worse when the debuff brings it to 0% and the Defense build still has 25%?

I think the high Defense build would be on the pro for me simply because +Recharge would compound my problem with pressing the Secondary powers more often. I'm not saying I would like to completely reduce the use of Regeneration. That would be absurd and I would soon just make a Katana/Willpower instead. What I want to do is to reduce the usage of said click powers, where possible. What do you think? Would this be good for most situations?

On a side note: I think this would be so much easier if Inventions let me add +Resists from set bonuses. Significant bonuses. Not those pathetic little pebbles of Resist you can find here and there.

The problem comes in with that "eggs in one basket" thing. If you've sacrificed the ability to get regen's clicks back faster to max out defense, then when you do lose that defense then you're in a really bad way.

On the resistances thing, I don't think you actually want that unless you assume that the devs would give us both significant +DEF and significant +RES. If we're willing to assume that, then yeah, I'm all for it.

If I have to choose between the two, though, I want +DEF every time. All the ATs can get to the same 90% average mitigation with DEF, as opposed to the 75% mitigation cap for Scrappers and most ATs. Plus, I get to mitigate more things in fewer pair-ups - I have a hard time imagining them combining Psi or Tox resistance into other bonuses, meaning we'd have five typed resistance combos to try and stack, as opposed to four for damage-typed defense (L/S, F/C, E/N and Psi) or three for positional. Granted, we don't get the option for Toxic defense, but there are very few pure toxic attacks. Indeed, the mixed attack types of most attacks means you can often get better average mitigation from even just one or two of the +DEF type pairs. Having high L/S resists but low E/N resists when being hit by Dark Melee punches means you might take a lot of negative damage, but L/S defense can ward off the whole thing.

Ah yes. I definitely understand the eggs in one basket deal now. It's something I'm fine with and I feel am capable in dealing with the shortcomings of such a build. Great input on here all around! It seems like I'll be keeping an eye on the endurance consumption when I get the whole thing set up and see if I need to buy those two Enzymes to stick into Weave.

It will be good to play my "main" again, which I so happened to neglect for a very very long time.

Right now I have a DM/Regen with about 25% melee, 17% ranged about 10% AoE, and 70% recharge. I kind of split the difference here, though this is actually fairly high defense in DM/Regen terms, at least on the melee "position". I'm pretty happy with it.

My lowest slot cost option to eke out another 3% defense is the Gladiator's +Def unique. I could also eke out a bit more recharge if I broke for Panaceas in my heals. For now I have other plans for my money, but I also keep my characters' wealth fairly compartmentalized, so I actually am eyeing these options.

OK so I was messin around with your build bAss and here's what I came up with...

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Pulled off the tele pool for hasten
Range defense dropped to 42.5 but you could easily cap that with a set of Mako on GC... ( I wouldn't)
aoe defense took a big hit to 34... which I think is more than enough...
Endurance is under control
And you are now able to run Werner's chain with or without hasten.
With a timely use of hasten... as in right after you hit DP, you should be in good shape

To top it all... it's probably cheaper than what you have there...


Edit: missed click... the Damage/Endurance should be replaced with Damage/Recharge on GC to bring the recharge down to 1.55

Thanks Iggy! I'll take a look at that in detail later in the evening.

Playing more carefully because of defense debuffs means several things in my case. First and foremost, I monitor base defense so that when it goes red, I know I'm debuffed BEFORE I get killed by it. I use Divine Avalanche double-stacked as part of my attack chain, but if debuffed, it can be worth just spamming it until the debuff is over. Or I may want to take a purple immediately. Or in some cases, I might want to run, regroup, and come back in. I may focus on the debuffers first.

On a soft-capped FM/WP, you can do all of that but spam Divine Avalanche. So yeah, you'll be fine as long as you play carefully, with perhaps the occasional cascading defense failure death against tough odds.

That is helpful, thank you.

My main Mouse Police on Virtue is a katana/regen built for defense. I think I'm above 40% defense on range and aoe, and around 20% or less on melee... I don't necessarily recommend my build to other people but if you aren't soloing AVs or doing PvP, it's perfectly viable as a PvE build.

But I do have a second katana/regen at 42 that's built the more traditional way. ^_^